Pitching Like It’s Twenty Oh Five

March 17, 2009 | mriehn | Comments 0

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Chris Carpenter - The key to Quality Starts?

Cardinal pitching was the essence of mediocrity in 2008.  They finished last year in the middle of the pack in team ERA, with their 4.19 mark good for 14th in major league baseball.  While this isn’t terrible, I believe it only tells part of the story of how they did.  In many ways, they were worse than this.  The bullpen broke down at the end of the season, which many people attribute to the lack of a good closer.  When you take a closer look, I think you will see that the starting pitching was the main culprit.

There are many great pitching stats out there that do a lot to predict what a pitcher will do in future performance.  These are great to use and understand, but when looking back at the results, sometimes a basic stat can tell you the “why” of results in more simplistic terms.

Let’s take a look at a few select “durability” stats for the top 5 starters in 2008:

What I think is interesting and telling from this table is the low innings pitched overall and the quality start percentages under 50%.  Quality starts are defined as pitching at least 6 innings, while giving up no more than 3 ER.  The Cardinals only had quality starts (QS) in 48% of their contests, which was 18th in major league baseball.   This means more than half of the time, the Cardinals were getting poor starts.

While the starters from above were decent, and only Looper was below the 48% number, the QS statistic was brought down by having to find replacement level starts for Wainwright (who only made 20 starts) and Pineiro (25 starts).  Thus, players who are not good (Brad Thompson, Mike Parisi) or not ready (Jamie Garcia, Mitchell Boggs) had to take 19 starts that they predictably did poorly with.  Even when the 5 main pitchers did start, their 871.34 innings averaged out to only 174 1/3 IP per player.  We did not have the depth to sustain major injuries to the starting staff last year.

Now contrast this with 2005.  In 2005 the Cardinals had the best ERA in the league at 3.49.  The staff was anchored by Chris Carpenter’s 241 innings pitched, but also had a consistent group of pitchers who took the ball every 5 days.  Nobody besides Carp was great, but they weren’t bad either, and they rarely missed a start (2 starts missed on the season).

This durability meant that the Cardinals weren’t giving away starts to replacement level players, which is a huge plus.  Even with injury to the every day lineup, the Cardinals won over 100 games (for the second year in a row) and cruised into the playoffs.

This is what the top 5 Cardinal pitchers did in 2005:

First of all, WOW on Chris Carpenter.  An 85% quality start rate is dominant, and he earned the Cy Young with his consistent play.  The team was 4th overall in the majors in quality starts.  One of the most remarkable things about the staff is how it limited the amount of innings pitched for the bullpen.  The top 5 starters had 1038.68 innings, which AVERAGED out to be 207 2/3 innings pitched per pitcher.  The group combined for 96 quality starts (with a total of 97) and had a 60% quality start rate.  It’s a lot easier to win games when your pitchers are giving you a good start 60% of the time.

Hopefully, the 2009 Cardinals will be more like the 2005 staff.  While I think 60% is too high of a goal for any team, it is possible that they could split the difference and make the playoffs (especially with a better and healthier offense).

Carpenter had a career year in 2005, so we can’t expect him to duplicate that kind of success.  The rest of the staff in 2005 was just solid, so we can make up some ground there.  Kyle Loshe and Adam Wainright had 60% Quality Starts in 2008.  It’s not hard to imagine Wainright improving a little bit (even if it is just starting more games with the same percentage), but Loshe will probably regress slightly.

Wellemeyer put up a respectable 53% quality start rate, and something I think he can repeat, but the Cardinals would benefit from Joel Pineiro (or someone else in that spot) improving on his 48%.  While it isn’t likely, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility for him to match Morris’ 2005 rate of 52% (In 2007, Pineiro had a 45% rate, so I’d bet the under on that number).

Carpenter regressed to 59% Quality Starts in 2006.  If he can match that number, that would still be a 14% increase from Braden Looper last year, and go a long way in improving our staff.

The biggest variable will be replacing the “injured” starts with something better than replacement level.  If (When?) we do have injuries, Adam Ottavino or Mitchell Boggs is going to have to step up beyond replacement level or Mozeliak is going to have to find a decent pitcher via the trade market.  If they can even be average starting pitchers in their starts, or put up a 50% quality start rate, it would be a huge boost for this team.

The Cardinals will have their best shot at the playoffs with a relatively healthy pitching staff in 2009.  This, combined with a similar offense to last year, would give the Cardinals a great chance to contend and is something to watch for during the 2009 season.

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Photo courtesy of Dustin Mattison at the 2009 Winter Warm Up

Filed Under: Baseball • Uncategorized

Tags: Adam Wainwright • Braden Looper • Chris Carpenter • Jason Marquis • Jeff Suppan • Joel Pineiro • Kyle Loshe • Mark Mulder • Matt Morris • Quality Start Percentage • Quality Starts • St. Louis Cardinals • Todd Wellemeyer